'Oh, you mean Miss Levering.' 'Yes; nice creature, isn't she?' said Lord John, benevolently. 'I used rather to love her,' said Mrs. Freddy, brightly, 'but she doesn't come to us any more. She seems to be giving up going anywhere, except here, so far as I can make out.' 'She knows she can rest here,' said Lady John. 'What does she do to tire her?' demanded Mr. Freddy. 'Hasn't she been amusing herself in Norway?' 'Since she came back she's been helping my sister and me with a scheme of ours,' said Lady John. 'She certainly knows how to juggle money out of the men!' admitted Mrs. Heriot. 'It would sound less equivocal, Lydia, if you added that the money is to build baths in our Shelter for Homeless Women.' 'Homeless women?' echoed Mr. Freddy. 'Yes; in the most insanitary part of Soho.' 'Oh--a--really.' Mr. Freddy stroked his smart little moustache. 'It doesn't sound quite in Miss Levering's line,' Farnborough hazarded. 'My dear boy,' said his hostess, 'you know as little about what's in a woman's line as most men.' 'Oh, I say!' Mr. Freddy looked round with a laugh. Lord John threw out his chest and dangled his eyeglass with an indulgent air. 'Philanthropy,' he said, 'in a woman like Miss Levering, is a form of restlessness. But she's a _nice_ creature. All she needs is to get some "nice" fella to marry her!' Mrs. Freddy laughingly hooked herself on her husband's arm. 'Yes; a woman needs a balance wheel, if only to keep her from flying back to town on a hot day like this.' 'Who,' demanded the host, 'is proposing anything so----' 'The Elusive One,' said Mrs. Freddy. 'Not Miss----' 'Yes; before luncheon.' Dick Farnborough glanced quickly at the clock, and then his eyes went questing up the great staircase. Lady John had met the chorus of disapproval with-- 'She must be in London by three, she says.' Lord John stared. '_To-day?_ Why she only came late last night! What must she go back for, in the name of----' 'Well, _that_ I didn't ask her. But it must be something important, or she would stay and talk over the plans for the new Shelter.' Farnborough had pulled out his cigarette case and stepped out through the window into the garden. But he went not as one who means to take a stroll and enjoy a smoke, rather as a man on a mission. A few minutes after, the desultory conversation in the hall was arrested by the sound of voices near the windows. They were in full view now--Vida Levering, hatless, a cool figure in pearl-grey with a red umbrella; St. John Greatorex, wearing a Panama hat, talking and gesticulating with a small book, in which his fingers still kept the place; Farnborough, a little supercilious, looking on. 'I protest! Good Lord! what are the women of this country coming to? I _protest_ against Miss Levering being carried indoors to discuss anything so revolting.'